Thursday, July 30, 2009

New fun stuff on WolframAlpha

A while back I mentioned the new search engine Wolfram Alpha in a post. According to what they've been writing on their blog they are constantly upgrading the searches you can do on it. Now you can do word searches. My favorite search so far is words that end in ass. Someday the internet will come to my house and read to me.

Yesterday I sent out a Twitter message concerning the location of the local Goodwill computer store. I did not expect the response I received, from the Goodwill people. They must monitor any tweets concerning Goodwill and respond to any that may have questions they can answer. Very smart use of Twitter.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

24 Hours of Booty

Starting at 7 pm Friday there was a charity event in Charlotte called 24 Hours of Booty. I went down there yesterday afternoon and set up for about half an hour on Queens Road West and took some pictures. It gave me a chance to do one of my favorite camera things: set the shutter speed low and pan as the subject goes by. I love that blurred background look that makes the bicycle look like it's really moving.

Melanie has expressed an interest in participating in this event next year. I'm not agin riding a bike for a few hours for charity but doing it in the last week of July in the Carolinas where the temperature regularly hits the mid 90s is less than appealing to me.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

This chart does have a point

I may have posted this before but this chart shows the adjusted ERAs for Nolan Ryan, Greg Maddux and steroid user Roger Clemens over their career. Adjusted ERA shows how much better a pitcher's ERA when compared to other pitchers in the league. 100 is average and the the higher the adjusted ERA the better he is. Two things you can notice here is that Maddux had an incredible run in the 90s and that Clemens was stuffed full of 'roids late in his career because no one, and I mean no one, has ever gotten better as they have gotten older. Not even two the more durable pitchers to ever play the game, Maddux and Ryan.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Is her serious?

OK, we proctor tests here at the library. Some of the tests are taken using a pen and paper. We receive emails from universities, we print the tests out, administer them and fax them to the schools. Other tests are taken on a university's Blackboard system. The student logs in and finds his test and we type in a password which is emailed to us from the school. Today's password which needed to enter was Jones3123. What I didn't realize (and I don't know how I possibly could) is that the period at the end of the password was...part of the password! I contact the teacher and he says "Did you enter the period? It is part of the password." I walk over the to the PC at which the student is sitting and enter the password with the period on the end. Of course it works. Am I crazy or is including a period at the end of a password and expecting someone to not think it's merely the end of a sentence a little stupid?

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Another Giant Wreck at a Stoopid Resctrictor Plate Race

Wow, last night's race was another restrictor plate joke. I hope NASCAR fixes this sometime soon. I only watched the last few laps. That's the only reason to watch one of these races, to see the chaos at the end. These races aren't sporting events, they are circus events designed for television. The only good thing that comes out of these embarrassments is the amateur footage from the stands.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Mel and I went down to South Carolina to buy some bottlerockets and the owner of the store we went to went out and shot off some mortar shells. Not bad for balancing the camera on the camera bag on the roof of my car.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

NASCAR Hall of Fame

The NASCAR Hall of Fame is fixin' to announce the 25 potential inductees for their first class of five the their Hall of Fame. My picks for the inaugural class of five are:

Richard Petty - Most wins ever, he's called the King.Bobby Allison - Tied for third in wins and was an innovatorDavid Pearson - Second most wins everBill France Sr. - Ummm...he created NASCARDale Earnhardt - often referred to as the greatest driver ever and tied Petty for most championships.

Dark horse: - Darrell Waltrip

I think they should open up the field for the first year. With five you know you are going to leave out a few true legends like Junior Johnson and Cale Yarborough. Baseball's first hall of fame class had seven members.